Byrn - Unbelievably Gluten-Free

Dinner Dishes You Never Thought Youd Be Able to Eat Again

Anne Byrn

Photographs by Lucy Schaeffer

WORKMAN PUBLISHING NEW YORK

Copyright 2012 by Anne Byrn
Photography copyright by Workman Publishing Company, Inc.
The Cake Mix Doctor is a registered trademark of Anne Byrn.
The Dinner Doctor is a registered trademark of Anne Byrn.

All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproducedmechanically, electronically, or by any other means, including photocopyingwithout written permission of the publisher. Published simultaneously in Canada by Thomas Allen & Son Limited.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available.

ISBN 978-0-7611-7504-9

Designer: Ariana Abud
Photography: Lucy Schaeffer
Food stylist: Simon Andrews
Prop stylist: Deborah Williams

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For Martha Bowden, who accepts every challenge with a smile.

Thanks again to all my readers who offered suggestions for this book. Thanks to those cooks who provided recipes, encouragement, and helpful gluten-free suggestions, especially Sarah Ann Harwick, Hartley Steiner, Bev Lieven, Cheryl Leslie, Suzanne Simpson, Jody Lehman, Alison Fujito, and Allison Greiner.

THIS BOOK IS ROOTED IN A BOOK TOUR. I was in Austin, Texas, signing copies of The Cake Mix Doctor Bakes Gluten-Free when one of the attendees shared her secret for making gluten-free angel food cake and the room grew instantly quiet. I dont know how everyone else felt at that moment, but I felt like we had been handed a long hoped for secret.

And that was far from the end of it. In Denver readers asked me for recipes for gluten-free fried chicken, potpie, and pizza. And in Milwaukee, a group of gluten-free cooks gathered at their local bookstore to meet the Cake Mix Doctor and afterward swapped tips for using sweet rice flour in gumbo and how to make your own gluten-free bread crumbs. From city to city, it was the same routine. I came to speak about cake and ended up scribbling dinner notes at the podium. Gluten-free pie crust, lasagna, fried fish. It just made me hungry.

Once I was home I created a gluten-free angel food cake of sweet rice and sorghum flours. I attempted my first roux without the customary flour and butter, instead browning sweet rice flour until it was a deep tan color and adding this to simmering broth, tomatoes, and seasonings for seafood gumbo. I found spaghetti made from corn at my local Whole Foods and tossed it with chopped ripe tomatoes, basil, and garlic. I dredged chicken breasts in gluten-free panko crumbs and fried them until crispy. I made a gluten-free pie crust and turned it into a potpie crammed with chicken and veggies. I made pizza doughs, both thick and thin. I baked lasagna with brown rice noodles. And I made creamy rice pudding and a flourless chocolate cake so dark and delicious everyone begged for the recipe.

I am not someone who has to forego gluten for health reasons. I have been baking for forty years and cooking dinner for a family for more than twenty of those. I am curious and enjoy a challenge. And I love good food. Just because you cant eat gluten does not mean you have to do without those amazing comfort foods we all look forward to. And knowing that no busy mom should ever have to cook one dinner for the gluten-free family member and a second dinner for the rest of the family helped me develop a greater resolve to write this book. From appetizers to soups, to salads, to sides, to mains, to breads, and of course, desserts, these recipes are completely family friendly and unbelievably gluten-free. They are gluten-free either because of the ingredients they contain or the technique you employ to make them so. Come join me as we cook unbelievably good gluten-free dinners for everyone!

Anne Byrn
Nashville, Tennessee

WHAT IS IT THAT GLUTENthe protein found in wheat, barley, and ryeadds to dinner? It thickens sauces and soups, binds meatballs and meat loaf, adds structure to cakes, pie crust, and breads, and helps form a crust to seal in the juices of fried chicken and fish, to name just a few things. Take away gluten and can we still create those same homey soups and stews, sauces, fish fries, and desserts? Thats what I wanted to know when working on this book.

Lets backtrack for a minute. It is estimated that 1 in every 133 people in the United States and Canada suffers from celiac disease whereby the body isnt able to metabolize gluten. Many more people are sensitive to gluten. On top of that, many who must eat gluten-free or are sensitive to gluten cannot tolerate dairy. I first wrote for a gluten-free audience in my cookbook The Cake Mix Doctor Bakes Gluten-Free. It was a book requested by readers who could no longer bake my cakes because either they or someone they loved had discovered they had to give up food containing gluten. I learned in researching that book that gluten-free cake mixes are a handy and inexpensive way to bake because you dont have to keep a lot of expensive ingredients on hand. But just like cake flour mixes need doctoring up to improve their flavor, I found that acidic ingredients like sour cream, orange juice, and buttermilk improved the gritty texture of the rice flour used in gluten-free mixes, and an extra egg improved the finished cakes volume.

{I hope you see how healthy and fresh gluten-free dinners can be.}

This dinner book came with its own set of challenges. How could I thicken without flour, bind stuffings, or coat chicken without my favorite bread crumbs, or make something as simple as French toast gluten-free? How could I make gumbo when the flour and butter roux was the very heart and soul of the soup? How could I enjoy pasta? And then came the requests from readerscould I share with them a recipe for an angel food cake, a red velvet cake, a potpie? Potpie? I got a uneasy feeling in my stomach trying to imagine how in the world I could make a perfect gluten-free pie crust.

Fortunately I have learned from my previous books that a cookbook is not written in a day. I reached out to other gluten-free cooks and had the creative assistance of Martha Bowden in the kitchen. As I write this introduction I think back on the nine months spent testing recipes, hoping for just one success. And the successes came: The pie crust day was memorable and unlocked the door to potpies, cobblers, pecan pie, apple tarts, fried pies, you name it. The pizza crust day was a good one, too.

Along the way, I revisited easy cooking techniques I learned in my mothers kitchen, and also in cooking school in France, but had taken for grantedpureeing soups to thicken them, taking the lid off the soup pot to let the juices cook down and evaporate without adding a thickening ingredient, adding potato to a stew to let its natural starch thicken the juices. It didnt take long to realize that toasting gluten-free sandwich bread made it tastier. And it also made better bread crumbs. When I added a little Italian seasoning and Parmesan cheese to those bread crumbs I was in business.